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Sally Menke, Film Editor for Tarantino and Other Directors, Is Dead

Sally Menke, a film editor best known for her long association with the director Quentin Tarantino, and who edited his kinetic features like “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction,” the “Kill Bill” movies and “Inglourious Basterds,” was found dead on Tuesday in the Beachwood Canyon section of Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. She was 56.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Ms. Menke went hiking on Monday morning, and her friends contacted the police later in the day when she failed to return home. Her body was found Tuesday morning at the bottom of a ravine, not far from a parking lot where her car was found. Ed Winter, the assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, told The Times that the office was trying to determine if the recent heat wave had been a factor in Ms. Menke’s death.

Ms. Menke wrote in a 2009 essay for The Guardian about how she and Mr. Tarantino first worked together on his debut feature. “I got in touch, and he sent me this script for a thing called ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ ” she wrote, “and I just thought it was amazing. It floored me.” She added: “I was hiking up in Canada on a remote mountain in Banff when I saw a phone box, and I stopped to call L.A. and they confirmed I’d got the gig. I let out a yell that echoed around the mountain.”

Lawrence Bender, who has produced many of Mr. Tarantino’s films starting with “Reservoir Dogs,” said Tuesday that Ms. Menke was “not just a person we worked with, but a person who became a very dear friend.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Bender described a tradition on Mr. Tarantino’s films in which the director and his actors would send their greetings to Ms. Menke back in her editing room by speaking the phrase “Hi, Sally” on camera. These repeated salutations would then be edited into gag reels shared with the cast and crew (and added to DVD releases of Mr. Tarantino’s films).

“That was something Quentin just started doing, something to make her laugh,” Mr. Bender said.

“Out of everybody, bar none, who’s worked with Quentin, Sally was the closest to Quentin,” Mr. Bender said. “Every movie, morning noon and night together, the two of them in that edit room. And he would go so far as to say, ‘O.K., well, I’m not going to shoot the movie until she’s available.’ If she wasn’t available, he wouldn’t shoot. But when you’re shooting, she’s not there. But she’s there in spirit. That’s just a way to say, ‘We’re thinking about you, Sally. You’re here with us. Hi, Sally.’

In addition to her work with Mr. Tarantino, Ms. Menke also edited Oliver Stone‘s “Heaven & Earth,” Lee Tamahori‘s “Mulholland Falls,” and Billy Bob Thornton‘s “All the Pretty Horses,” for which she also served as an executive producer.

Discussing his collaboration with Ms. Menke in a video interview on the DVD release of his film “Death Proof,” Mr. Tarantino said, “I write by myself, but when it comes to the editing I write with Sally.”

Examples of the “Hi, Sally” reels that were compiled on Mr. Tarantino’s films “Death Proof” and “Inglourious Basterds” can be seen below:

In these outtakes from “Inglourious Basterds,” Mr. Tarantino and the film’s cast wave to Ms. Menkes (from the other side of the screen) with the repeated greeting, “Hi, Sally”: